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Remarks by Aaron Wu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2022

Aaron Wu*
Affiliation:
Legal Adviser, Department for International Trade (UK). aaron.wu@trade.gov.uk.

Extract

This Article will investigate how the natural environment is conceptualized in international law. Environmental campaigners typically place great faith in the discipline's ability to restrain the onset of growing “global” problems: such as species extinctions, clearing of forests, pollution, and climate change. Law has traditionally been a key domain for efforts to regulate, and curb, these problems. While a vast body of existing literature assesses the effectiveness and adequacy of these initiatives, this dissertation takes a different approach. It explores particular visions of the natural environment that inform such initiatives. I will proceed from the premise that international law, rather than merely reflecting the natural environment, shapes how we perceive it. With this in mind, I will investigate a selection of stories that international law tells about the natural environment, and consider the different, competing stories it deprivileges. The key question is: what role has international law played in making certain ways of thinking about nature come to seem normal or intuitive, and how does this affect efforts to curb environmental harms?

Type
Reframing International Legal Inquiries: New Voices Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The American Society of International Law.

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